More Information:Tate, Nahum (c.1652-1715), poet, playwright, and translator, probably born in Ireland... He lived there as a professional writer (with perhaps a brief period as a schoolmaster between 1687 and 1692) for the rest of his life. During the early 1680s Tate wrote committedly in support of Charles II, and initially welcomed James II's succession in 1685. But he seems to have become rapidly disenchanted with James's extreme pro-Catholic policies, and at the revolution of 1688-9 transferred his allegiance to William III, whom he hailed as a pious peacemaker and defender of English liberty. After the death of Thomas Shadwell in 1692, on 8 December Tate was appointed to the poet laureateship, a position which he held for life... In 1677 he published his own collection of Poems: sixty-nine short pieces, including love lyrics, melancholy Flatmanesque reflections, and one poem ('On the Present Corrupted State of Poetry') which provides early evidence of his pious tendencies. An expanded and revised edition of the collection, with many metrical and stylistic improvements, appeared in 1684. [Oxford DNB]Wing T211. ESTC r11038. T.C. 2,73. Macdonald 232.